Author: admin

A UFO descends over the Rocky Mountains in North America, and Sky One closes in for the kill. But Foster and a squad of Mobiles are closing on the area too, and with the opportunity to capture an Alien alive, the order is given to let it land. Settling beside a cliff, the UFO is hemmed in but when an operative sees a hatch open and moves forward to investigate, it self-destructs. Foster does not believe the Alien would allow himself to be destroyed so easily, and sure enough they find a old mine-working entrance behind the wreckage. Foster goes in alone, and finds an Alien device.

The "Operation Babylon" of the title is the aliens' plot to turn the speech of the SHADO operatives into gibberish so they cannot communicate with each other and coordinate a defense against a UFO invasion. The title is derived from the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel in Babylon, where God is said to have caused humanity to use different languages in different parts of the world, instead of the single language once said to have been spoken by all, so that it became difficult for all to be understood.

(Countdown Holiday Special)
A UFO gets through Moonbase defences but is crippled by Sky 1 and crashes in the Brazilian jungle. Paul Foster and a specialist on the Brazilian region, Eric Jefferson, are despatched to find it. Spotting the crashed UFO from the air, they land nearby and travel as far as they can by Mobile but the forest is too thick, forcing them to travel on foot.

The story opens with the Flaxman Circus playing in Craighferris, Ireland. As far as I can tell, Flaxman Circus and Craighferris are both fictional creations for the story. Page 3 of the story indicates Craighferris is located in southern Ireland.
Straker speculates that the aliens were interested in obtaining Mermoda from the circus for his mind reading skills, to carry on their own telepathic development.
SHADO uses the amnesia drug on a fairly large number of people in this story to make them forget seeing the UFO possessed by the circus and the alien that later emerged; the implication is that both circus employees and guests were treated.

Countdown Annual 1973
- Freeman and another in a Mobile have destroyed a UFO and are driving along a country road when they come to a tree fallen across the road. When they get out and try to shift it, 2 men run in from a hedge and and knock them out with ?iron bars and tie them up. They see from the dashboard that the Mobile has a cannon. They drove it to a place where they planned to ambush a security van carrying nearly 100,000 pounds in payroll. One of them knew that SHADO existed and had been listening to a SHADO wavelength to know when the Mobile would pass. (Surely SHADO radio would be scrambled?) Straker, getting no signal from the Mobile, goes in his car to investigate. Freeman gnaws through his bonds. The Mobile comes out of a cart track entrance and rams the security van. The impact knocks both guards in the van out. The van's back doors are jammed, so the 2 men blow it open with the Mobile's cannon and take the payroll and drive back to the ambush site to transfer to their own car. Freeman and the other have just freed themselves when Straker arrives and picks them up. Their car and the stolen Mobile converge at a crossroads. The thieves see that Freeman and the other are in the car, and want to ram it, but a UFO flies in. One of the thieves runs away, and the UFO shoots him with a heavy mounted raygun. Straker runs to the Mobile, pushes the other thief aside, and makes the Mobile dodge just before the UFO shot at where it had just been. The UFO comes in for another pass. Straker orders "Fire!", and {the other thief has to obey} to save his life, destroying the UFO. Straker and his men take the surviving thief to the local police and return to SHADO headquarters

Countdown Annual 1972
A coal mine in England is said to be haunted. Davy (one of the miners) hears noises from some old blocked-off workings. The rest scoff at him. Davy goes off to look for the cause of the noise. On the surface, Foster and Murray in a Mobile rush past to investigate the 4th UFO landing reported that week, but like the others this UFO came down on a nearby moor and vanished. The Mobile goes onto the moor and finds no trace. As it goes back to the road, it falls through a thin cover of branches over an old mineshaft. Foster jumps out clear onto the edge of the hole, but Murray goes down with the Mobile. Foster climbs down the mineshaft, and finds that the Mobile is a total wreck and Murray is gone. He walks into the old workings and sees at least 3 UFO's in a passage. 3 miners go to look for Davy. Some timbers are loose, as if someone had opened the old workings. They go into the old workings and find Foster and jump on him as a suspicious intruder and suspect that he had harmed Davy. Foster tries to explain about the aliens and the UFO's and is not believed. Just then Dave comes back to them, with Murray leaning on him, and says that the 2 had been chased by men with green skin. The miners decide to flee. Then at least 4 armed aliens come, and seem to `have them cold', but Foster calls for an attempt to fight out of the trap, else the humans there would be shipped away in a UFO. (The aliens' helmets are the usual shape but completely transparent.) But the rest of the miners come with picks and shovels, thinking that the resulting noise from the old workings is a roof fall. They see what was happening and attack the aliens with their picks and shovels. One of the aliens breaks away. Foster wonders why, and chases him, and grabs the alien as he is about to operate a small control panel, guessing that it is a self-destruct. He calls the miners to leave the fight and run back to the new workings. They all get away, but the aliens do not follow them. The old workings blow up behind them. Davy has a motorcycle and sidecar: with it he takes Foster and some explosive to the top of the old shaft. Foster throws the explosive in just as the first of the UFO's gets near the top of the shaft as it tries to escape. The alien base and the UFO's explode, self-destructing rather than be captured.